The Nkoaranga orphanage

Hello everyone! This is Laura. I know some of you have asked that I write about the orphanage where I am working, so here it is.

The orphanage is called Nkoaranga, and it is part of a complex that includes a hospital and a school. There are 24 children at the orphanage from 3 months to 4 years old. When they turn 4 the kids are taken to a boarding school where they will attend primary and secondary. When the kids reach that stage the foundation that runs the projects looks for sponsors to help pay for their education. When they complete secondary school they are returned to the nearest relative they can find. They kids are fairly well taken care of, they have clothes and foods, and a few toys to play with. The clothes are all donated and quite old, most of them have holes. The food is abundant but not very nutritious, mostly rice, beans and porridge (milk and corn?). Once or twice I have seen them eat pasta, and some vegetables, but that is the exception.

As I volunteer I have taken the afternoon shift, there are other volunteers from different organizations that go there in the morning. My job when I get there is to get them out of bed, since they nap from noon to 2, and change them. That is quite the challenge because they still use cloth diapers. The orphanage does not have wipes or baby powder, so most of the volunteers have brought some of these items to use. After waking them and changing them it is play time! The older ones entertain themselves fairly well, but the 1 and 2 year olds want nothing but for you to hold them. There is always someone crying, either because another kid hit them, or because nobody is paying attention. We try to split our time so all the kids get some loving. Around 4 pm they bring out dinner. We usually sit three or four kids in front of us and feed them all at once. The little babies require a bottle, so that takes a little bit more time. The 4 year olds feed themselves. One of the funniest things is that they have a TV with a video player and their favorite movie is, bar none!, the Lion King! They refer to it as Hakuna Matata! which is funny, because all these kids speak swahili so that is the only sentence they understand of the whole movie.

After dinner is more play time. They go to bed around 6:30.

A few of the kids are really sick, with pnemonia or malaria. One of them, Baraka, has totally stolen my heart and the poor little guys is in and out of the hospital with problems. Another child, Hussein, has a problem with his legs, he is 2 and still doesn't walk. We have arranged for him to go to physical therapy. In one of the pictures you can see him strapped to a board learning to walk. This kid is the happiest kid ever, though. Always smiling and laughing.

By now the kids already know me, and are very happy to see us. The sad part is when we leave, since most of them cry. The other sad part is only being a part of their lives for such a short time, you have to imagine that they get attached to the volunteers and then we leave. There is always new people coming and going, so that is hard.

Jeremy also has a new post right below.

Anecdotes from Tengeru

Going out for a beer in Tengeru can be quite an adventure. Being a bunch of volunteers in one house, there's nothing better to end the day than a cold beer at the New Wisdom Bar just down the street. The problem is returning from the bar after 9:30pm. At 9:30pm, the dogs are let out. Yes, the dogs... These dogs are kept chained up at home throughout the day and are let loose to roam the streets of Tengeru at 9:30 pm. So, what do these dogs do? In Babu's words, "They bite." When do they bite? "All night." This was difficult for Laura and I to believe so with some other volunteers, we headed to the bar for a few beers. By the time everybody had gotten a buzz, it was 10:30pm and time to go home. We didn't think anything of the dogs but luckily, Babu had found us at the bar and stayed to walk us home. He borrowed a volunteer's headlamp and we began our walk to the house. Babu recruited another man to flank one side of our group. As we walked up the hill, dogs began flying out of the woods all over the place. In front, back, both sides. None of them really barked and none of them were much larger than a beagle but by the time we reached the house, about 20 dogs had approached us in some manner. Babu and his helper were able to keep them at bay by shining the light into their eyes. It reminded me a bit too much of my paper route days in Orleans.

On July 4th, I had organized a BBQ celebration at the house. I picked up some fresh meat, firewood, and hot dogs for the party. When I returned home that afternoon, Masih (one of the new volunteers) had inquired Lema (the volunteer coordinator) about the possibility of sacrificing a sheep for the party. Masih was so determined that the 3 of us set out to find a good sheep for slaughter. After some hours of inquiring with multiple families, we finally purchased a sheep for $20. The sacrifice was good to go. As dusk approached, our tied up sheep struggled to get loose of its roped feet. With some helpers holding it down, Masih sliced through the neck of our sheep. We tied it up, gutted it, and sliced off various parts to begin our BBQ. While the meat roasted, we shared some american hot dogs... the africans were impressed with the hot dog. The lamb was incredible and we polished off the whole lamb except for a single leg. Ah, where else can you go to your neighbor, buy a sheep, and slaughter it for dinner?

This weekend, our plans were to see the bushmen. A group of nomads which still use hunting and gathering to survive. Our plans fell through but I had a funny conversation about them with a new volunteer, Adam. Adam is a big Wisconsin guy who is not particularly interested in camping, doesn't like spiders, and abhors snakes. This is Adam speaking to his family back home.

"So, let me review, my first week in Africa I've been hit on by a Nairobi hooker, sacrificed a lamb for dinner, and gone tribal with a bunch of click-speaking bushmen."

"What are you going to do to top that?"

"Well, next weekend I'm just going to a 90% muslim island called Zanzibar."

"My god, how do you follow that up?"

"I think the following weekend I'll have unprotected sex in Africa."

Speaking of HIV, Laura and I visited a new HIV+ center in a small town next to Tengeru. We actually planted about 20 donated trees from my tree nursery (COOL!!). We enjoyed visiting with the group and got to speak in front of the young children who are HIV+. They enjoyed practicing their english with us. It was a unique experience; they were genuinely happy to have us there.

This coming week is our last week as volunteers. On Saturday, we leave for a safari and following the safari, we are visiting Zanzibar. From there, it's on to Nairobi to fly to Barcelona to visit Laura's parents. Future posts will be sparse due to the inaccessibility of the internet during safari.

Ol Doinyo Sambu, a Maasai village

Laura and I spent the weekend in Ol Doinyo Sambu, a central village for the Maasai tribes. The village hosts the largest Maasai market every Saturday. The market is partitioned into 2 sides, the vegetable/goods side and the cattle/goat/chicken trading side. We arrived in Ol Doinyo Sambu around noon and after lunch, headed to the market. We decided to start with the vegetable/goods side; this market was quite familiar to us because of the many other markets we have attended. The only unique thing about it was that there were a ton of Maasai people in their traditional wear.

One of the highlights of this part of the market were the men sewing the Maasai blankets. The Maasai blankets are worn by men and women over 18 years of age and the blanket colors represent various feelings like love, peace, etc. At the market, you could buy an unhemmed blanket and have these guys clean it up for you!

On the other side of the market was the cattle/goat/chicken trading. This is the main reason this market is bustling. City folk come long lengths to trade their money/goods for Maasai cattle and goats. The Maasai survive off this trade. Here's a photo of the cattle market.


Their culture is basically to groom young men to herd cattle/goats for the family. The cattle are taken to wherever the best grazing land is and boys aged 8-18 are required to make sure no cattle escape. The richest Maasai man is the one with the most cattle and the children to handle them. Boys grow to become warriors after they are circumcised... no pain killers and no tears are the requirements. Every 7 years, a circumcision festival is held to circumsize the boys. After that point, a boy becomes a warrior. His function changes to a protector of the village instead of a herder of the cattle. Although, if grassland is scarce, the warrior will take cattle to farther lands instead of the younger children. From warrior, you become an elder at 45. Elders are the wise men of the tribe and are called upon to solve disputes in the village.

We met a very special elder, the liboni. The liboni is the medicine man of the village. He has knowledge in all the local medicine and is known as the village healer. I decided to give him a few bucks to check my health. After some crazy shaking of a bottle, speaking into a bottle, and looking over some rocks that came out of the bottle, it turned out I had a small fever, nothing to worry about and was going to have a stomach ache later in the day. It turned out that later in the day, I was about to eat a popsicle that most likely didn't have the water boiled... I recalled the liboni's words of wisdom and tossed the popsicle instead of eating it. Maybe he saved me some pain.

The Maasai are a polygamist society so one man marries many women. Each woman costs 10 cows to marry so it's expensive to get a wife. Unfortunately, women don't appear to be treated very well in the society. Men only watch over the cattle and provide the village with protection, everything else is the responsibility of the woman. They cook, collect firewood, clean, take care of young children and they've got no say in the family decisions that are all made by the male. Other tribes say a Maasai woman is the best because they know how to work. It's unfortunate the way they are treated as inferior.

The land the Maasai live in is desolate. The best way to explain it is that they graze their cattle in the middle of the Arizona desert. I couldn't believe how dry and dusty everything was and this was just the start of dry season. During wet season, it floods. During dry season, it's dry as a bone. Very hot too.

Laura and I slept in one of the homes in a boma (Maasai homestead). It had 4 rooms. One room contained a single bed which both of us had to fit in. One room was the sitting room and kitchen (the kitchen is a small pit for firewood). One room held a young heffer (yeah, a baby cow) that they family was protecting. The last room held the family chickens which they have for the eggs, not to eat. So, we spent the night with a baby cow and a bunch of chickens. The chickens were pissed when we didn't let them out once the rooster called so they crapped all over the place.

Finally, the Maasai diet consists of very few things. Daily, they eat makonde, a bean and maize mixture. On special occasions, they kill a goat or cow for eating meat but it's rare because their hurting their business when they do that. Finally, they eat/drink loshoro. Loshoro is a boiled milk/ maize mixture which tastes like yogurt. Laura loved it, but I couldn't down it. It was rough.

Here are a few more pictures of from our stay. There's a lot more I could write about but my hands hurt! I've got pictures from Laura's orphanage that I'll put on an upcoming post.